Users today have a plethora of options associated with accessing media content. For example, interactive television menus require users to navigate menus and sub-menus, select content, and/or authorize special functions (e.g., fast-forwards, pauses, etc.). To allow users to fully interact with such menus, remote controls typically feature numerous buttons, each associated with distinct user commands (e.g., volume control buttons, fast-forward, pause, rewind buttons, a set of arrow keys, etc.).
Recently, developments in detecting and monitoring brain activity have allowed specialized equipment to distinguish one type of brain activity from another. Despite these advances, controlling access to media (e.g., replacing a traditional remote control and its numerous buttons) with equipment used to detect brain activity faces a substantial hurdle—a distinguishing enough types of brain activity in order to have each user command formally associated with one of the numerous buttons on a remote control mapped to a distinctive type of brain activity.